final

Assignment 2

Assignment 2

1. Summary of Chapter 2: Doing Our Best – Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Ethics refers to the principles that guide moral judgment and conduct. In mental health counseling, there are five guiding principles, that is, beneficence and no maleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice and respect for people’s rights, and finally, dignity. These ethics and the foundation upon which professional organizations have adopted a set of ethical standards so as to not only mental health clients but also mental health professionals.

Central to ethical behavior in counseling, mental health professionals are required to practice confidentiality as regards personal information about their clients. They are not permitted to reveal information about their clients except in some few cases, for example, if the information is requested by a judge through a court order if the information is vital to protect the client or a third party from danger or if the client is a child or an elderly person who cannot make an independent decision (Prout et al., 2021).

Mental health professionals are advised to be careful when entering dual relationships with current or former clients as this could affect their work as counselors. To help in ethical decision-making about dual relationships, mental health professionals can use the philosophical decision-making model (rational approach), or the practice-based decision-making model which takes into the emotional and contextual aspects of the process.

2. Definition of Key Terms

i. Ethics – These are the guidelines and principles that guide our moral judgment and professional conduct.

ii. Confidentiality -- is a code of ethics that requires mental health

professionals to not reveal personal information about their clients without their consent.

iii. Subpoena – This is a request that is not directly from a judge and therefore the mental health professional is not obliged to provide the requested information.

iv. Privilege – Refers to particular relationships that are protected from disclosure during legal proceedings. An example is a spousal privilege.

v. Dual relationship – A situation in which the mental health professional has more than one professional relationship with their client or is in another “definitive and intended role” in addition to the professional relationship.

vi. Duty to warn – An ethical obligation on mental health professionals to not withhold vital information that may lead to the protection of clients as well as third parties from when they are at risk.

vii. Virtue ethics -- is an approach to ethical decision-making that emphasizes the virtues of the mental health professional.

viii. Autonomy – A guiding principle that clients are capable of directing their own lives and making the best choices about their futures.

ix. Nonmaleficence – This is a principle in ethics that requires mental health professionals to strive to cause no harm to their clients during the course of therapy. It requires that mental health professionals who are battling their own mental problems refrain from offering services and instead seek professional help themselves so as to reduce the risk of harming others.

v. Fidelity – Refers to the principle of fostering trust with mental health clients by being confidential with the information revealed to you as a mental health professional and always acting ethically so as to promote public trust in mental health professionals.

3. Summary of three sections of the Chapter

I. The Ethics Code and Professional Standards

These are standards that have been developed by leading professional organizations to guide the conduct of mental health professionals in their practice. These codes protect mental health clients by ensuring that certain uniform protocols and rules are followed and that their welfare is safeguarded. They can also come in handy when mental health professionals are accused of unethical practices. Some of the sets of codes of practice in existence include the American Psychologists Association Code of Conduct and the American Counseling Association Code of conduct. These codes are enforceable which demonstrates their importance in building public trust that mental health professionals are indeed committed to upholding the highest professional standards possible.

II. Confidentiality and its Limits

Confidentiality requires that mental health professionals do not reveal the personal information they get by virtue of their position without the consent of their clients. However, there are limits to this confidentiality, and professionals are required to be aware of and discuss with the client. Some of the limits of confidentiality of information obtained from mental health clients include information about potential harm to the client or potential victims identified by the client or third parties to the danger posed to clients (Prout et al., 2021).

Mental health professionals may be obligated by a judge through a court order to reveal the client’s information without the client’s consent. However, in the case of a subpoena, which is not a court order, the professional should first seek consent. Other special cases where the professional may be obligated to provide their clients information without their consent include when working with children and adolescents as well as when working with adults who cannot make autonomous decisions due to diminished mental abilities.

III. Dual Relationships

Refer to those relationships that a mental health professional intentionally enters with a client in addition to the professional relationship. Mental health experts should always refer to the ethical standards of their profession as well as analyze the risks and benefits of entering into dual relationships because these relationships have the potential to cause harm. As a guide, mental health professionals should be careful not to enter into dual relationships with their clients if the relationship is likely to impair their objectivity, and competence thus affecting their performance. Furthermore, the relationship should not be exploitative or harmful to the client in any way (Prout et al., 2021).

Reference

Prout, T. A., Wadkins, M. J., & Tatianna Kufferath-Lin, P. (2021). Essential interviewing and counseling skills: An integrated approach to practice. Springer Publishing Company.